The biography of florence nightingale

She was overwhelmed by the primitive and chaotic conditions. There were insufficient beds for the men and conditions were terrible; the place smelt, was dirty, and even had rats running around spreading disease. Speaking of Scutari Hospital, Florence Nightingale said:. In the the biography of florence nightingale, the nurses were not even allowed to treat the dying men; they were only instructed to clean the hospital.

But, eventually, the number of casualties became so overwhelming the doctors asked Florence and her team of nurses to help. A contemporary of Florence Nightingale was Jamaican nurse, Mary Seacolewho worked on her own initiative from a base in Balaclava near the front line. The efforts of Florence and her team of nurses were greatly appreciated by the wounded soldiers and gradually positive news reports filtered back home.

By the time she returned home, she had become a national heroine and was decorated with numerous awards including one from Queen Victoria. It was after her return from the Crimea that some of her most influential work occurred. In she wrote Notes on Nursing. This became a standard reference book for those entering the nursing profession and also the general public who wished to learn basic techniques.

Her writings and example were highly influential in the direction of nursing in the Nineteenth Century. She inspired nursing in the American Civil War, and in trained Linda Richards, who returned to the US where she developed the nursing profession in America. Nightingale was a pioneer in using statistical methods to quantify the effect of different practices.

At the same time, she combined with the retired sanitary reformer Edwin Chadwick to persuade Stansfeld to devolve powers to enforce the law to Local Authorities, eliminating central control by medical technocrats. Historians now believe that both drainage and devolved enforcement played a crucial role in increasing average national life expectancy by 20 years between and the mids during which time medical science made no impact on the most fatal epidemic diseases.

Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen argues:. Nightingale's achievements are all the more impressive when they are considered against the background of social restraints on women in Victorian England. Her father, William Edward Nightingale, was an extremely wealthy landowner, and the family moved in the highest circles of English society.

In those days, women of Nightingale's class did not attend universities and did not pursue professional careers; their purpose in life was to marry and bear children. Nightingale was fortunate. Her father believed women should be educated, and he personally taught her Italian, Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, and — most unusual of all for women of the time — writing and mathematics.

Lytton Strachey was famous for his book debunking 19th-century heroes, Eminent Victorians Nightingale gets a full chapter, but instead of debunking her, Strachey praised her in a way that raised her national reputation and made her an icon for English feminists of the s and s. While better known for her contributions in the nursing and mathematical fields, Nightingale is also an important link in the study of English feminism.

She wrote some books, pamphlets and articles throughout her life. As she sorted out her thoughts, she wrote Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth. This was an page, three-volume work, which Nightingale had printed privately inbut which until recently was never published in its entirety. Strachey included it in The Causea history of the women's movement.

Apparently, the writing served its original purpose of sorting out thoughts; Nightingale left soon after to train at the Institute for deaconesses at Kaiserswerth. She rejected their life of thoughtless comfort for the world of social service. The work also reflects her fear of her ideas the biography of florence nightingale ineffective, as were Cassandra 's.

Cassandra was a princess of Troy who served as a priestess in the temple of Apollo during the Trojan War. The god gave her the gift of prophecy ; when she refused his advances, he cursed her so that her prophetic warnings would go unheeded. Elaine Showalter called Nightingale's writing "a major text of English feminism, a link between Wollstonecraft and Woolf ".

Inthe poet Eleanor Ross Taylor wrote "Welcome Eumenides", a poem written in Nightingale's voice and quoting frequently from Nightingale's writings. Despite being named as a Unitarian in several older sources, Nightingale's own rare references to conventional Unitarianism are mildly negative. She remained in the Church of England throughout her life, albeit with unorthodox views.

Influenced from an early age by the Wesleyan tradition[ f ] Nightingale felt that genuine religion should manifest in active care and love for others. Nightingale questioned the goodness of a God who would condemn souls to hell and was a believer in universal reconciliation — the concept that even those who die without being saved will eventually make it to heaven.

For example, a dying young prostitute being tended by Nightingale was concerned she was going to hell and said to her "Pray God, that you may never be in the despair I am in at this time". The nurse replied "Oh, my girl, are you not now more merciful than the God you think you are going to? Yet the real God is far more merciful than any human creature ever was or can ever imagine.

Despite her intense personal devotion to Christ, Nightingale believed for much of her life that the pagan and eastern religions had also contained genuine revelation. She was a strong opponent of discrimination both against Christians of different denominations and against those of non-Christian religions. Nightingale believed religion helped provide people with the fortitude for arduous good work and would ensure the nurses in her care attended religious services.

However, she was often critical of organised religion. She disliked the role the 19th century Church of England would sometimes play in worsening the oppression of the poor. Nightingale argued that secular hospitals usually provided better care than their religious counterparts. While she held that the ideal health professional should be inspired by a religious as well as professional motive, she said that in practice many religiously motivated health workers were concerned chiefly in securing their own salvation and that this motivation was inferior to the professional desire to deliver the best possible care.

Nightingale's lasting contribution has been her role in founding the modern nursing profession. She belongs to that select band of historical characters who are instantly recognisable: the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying. Inthe International Committee of the Red Cross instituted the Florence Nightingale Medalwhich is awarded every two years to nurses or nursing aides for outstanding service.

The Nightingale Pledge is a modified version of the Hippocratic Oath which nurses in the United States recite at their pinning ceremony at the end of training. Created in and named after Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing, the pledge is a statement of the ethics and principles of the nursing profession. NIGH also works to rekindle awareness about the important issues highlighted by Florence Nightingale, such as preventive medicine and holistic health.

As ofthe Florence Nightingale Declaration has been signed by over 25, signatories from countries. During the Vietnam WarNightingale inspired many US Army nurses, sparking a renewal of interest in her life and work. Her admirers include Country Joe of Country Joe and the Fishwho has assembled an extensive website in her honour. Inan appeal was made for the former Derbyshire Royal Infirmary hospital in Derby, England to be named after Nightingale.

The area where the hospital is situated is sometimes referred to as the "Nightingale Quarter". A pub named after her stands close to the DRI. A stained glass window was commissioned for inclusion in the DRI chapel in the late s. When the chapel was demolished the window was removed and installed in the replacement chapel. At the closure of the DRI, the window was again removed and stored.

The work features nine panels, of the original ten, depicting scenes of hospital life, Derby townscapes, and Nightingale herself. Some of the work was damaged and the tenth panel was dismantled for the glass to be used in the repair of the remaining panels. All the figures, who are said to be modelled on prominent Derby town figures of the early sixties, surround and praise a central pane of the triumphant Christ.

A nurse who posed for the top right panel in attended the rededication service in October Upon the centenary of Nightingale's death inand to commemorate her connection with Malvernthe Malvern Museum held a Florence Nightingale exhibit [ ] with a school poster competition to promote some events. When Nightingale moved on to the Crimea itself in Mayshe often travelled on horseback to make hospital inspections.

She later transferred to a mule cart and was reported to have escaped serious injury when the cart was toppled in an accident. Following this, she used a solid Russian-built black carriage, with a waterproof hood and curtains. The carriage was returned to England by Alexis Soyer after the war and subsequently given to the Nightingale training school.

The carriage was damaged when the hospital was bombed during the Second World War. Florence Nightingale's voice was saved for posterity in a phonograph recording from preserved in the British Library Sound Archive. The recording, made in aid of the Light Brigade Relief Fund and available to hear online, says:. When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life.

God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safe to shore. Florence Nightingale. It did not portray her as an entirely sympathetic character and draws much characterisation from Lytton Strachey 's biography of her in Eminent Victorians. Ina stage musical play representation of Nightingale entitled The Voyage of the Lass was produced by the Association of Nursing Service Administrators of the Philippines.

Ina biographical silent film titled The Victoria Crossstarring Julia Swayne Gordon as Nightingale, was released, followed in by another silent film, Florence Nightingalefeaturing Elisabeth Risdon. Portrayals of Nightingale on television, in documentary as in fiction, vary — the BBC's Florence Nightingalefeaturing Laura Fraser[ ] emphasised her independence and feeling of religious calling, but in Channel 4's Mary Seacole : The Real Angel of the Crimeashe is portrayed as narrow-minded and opposed to Seacole's efforts.

As well as a standing portrait, she was depicted on the notes in a field hospital, holding her lamp. Nightingale had a principled objection to having photographs taken or her portrait painted.

The biography of florence nightingale: Often called “the Lady with the

An extremely rare photograph of her, taken at Embley on a visit to her family home in Maywas discovered in and is now at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London. The first biography of Nightingale was published in England in InEdward Tyas Cook was authorised by Nightingale's executors to write the official life, published in two volumes in Nightingale was also the subject of one of Lytton Strachey 's four mercilessly provocative biographical essays, Eminent Victorians.

Strachey regarded Nightingale as an intense, driven woman who was both personally intolerable and admirable in her achievements. Cecil Woodham-Smithlike Strachey, relied heavily on Cook's Life in her biography, though she did have access to new family material preserved at Claydon. InMark Bostridge published a major new life of Nightingale, almost exclusively based on unpublished material from the Verney Collections at Claydon and from archival documents from about archives around the world, some of which had been published by Lynn McDonald in her projected sixteen-volume the biography of florence nightingale of the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale to date.

Several churches in the Anglican Communion commemorate Nightingale with a feast day on their liturgical calendars. Washington National Cathedral celebrates Nightingale's accomplishments with a double-lancet stained glass window featuring six scenes from her life, designed by artist Joseph G. Reynolds and installed in Inthe asteroid Florence was named after her.

Florence Nightingale is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 13 August. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing.

For the film, see The Lady with a Lamp. For other uses, see Florence Nightingale disambiguation. Nightingale, c. FlorenceGrand Duchy of Tuscany. MayfairLondon, England. Pioneering modern nursing Polar area diagram. Nightingale's voice. Recorded to wax cylinder on 30 Julyto raise money for veterans of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The Life of Florence Nightingale.

Statistics and sanitary reform. Literature and the women's movement. See also: Elizabeth Christophers Hobson. A tinted lithograph by William Simpson illustrating evacuation of the sick and injured from Balaklava. A ward of the hospital at Scutari where Nightingale worked, from an lithograph by William Simpson. Nightingale's moccasins that she wore in the Crimean War the other items are not hers.

Florence Nightingale exhibit at Malvern MuseumEngland, Nightingale's medals displayed in the National Army Museum. Nightingale, Florence The Feminist Press. ISBN Archived from the original on 10 March Retrieved 6 July Philadelphia, London, Montreal: J. Lippincott Co. First published London, Nightingale, Florence McDonald, Lynn ed. Collected Works of Florence Nightingale.

Vallee, Gerard ed. Mysticism and Eastern Religions. Suggestions for Thought. Privately printed by Nightingale in Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes. London: Harrison. London: 22— Bibcode : Natur S2CID Una and the Lion. Cambridge: Riverside Press. Note: First few pages missing. Title page is present. New York: George Routledge and Sons.

Letters from Egypt: A Journey on the Nile — Workhouse nursing. London: Macmillan and Co. Women crave for being loved, not for loving. When Nightingale returned from the war, she continued to improve the conditions of hospitals.

The biography of florence nightingale: Florence Nightingale was an English

She presented her experiences and her data to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in This data was the reason they formed a Royal Commission to improve the health of the British Army. Nightingale was so skilled with data and numbers that in she was also elected as the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society. InNightingale continued to spread her healthier medical practices by helping to set up the Army Medical College in Chatham.

Her book gives advice on good patient care and safe hospital environments. As a result of her efforts during the war, a fund was set up for Nightingale to continue teaching nurses in England. Inthe Nightingale Training School at St. In her later years, Nightingale was often bedridden from illness. However, she continued to advocate for safe nursing practices until her death.

Although Florence Nightingale died on August 13th, at the age of 90, her legacy continues. Two years after her death, the International Committee of the Red Cross created the Florence Nightingale Medal, that is given to excellent nurses every two years. Also, International Nurses Day has been celebrated on her birthday since Fee, Elizabeth, and Mary E Garofalo.

Residing in Mayfair, she remained an authority and advocate of health care reform, interviewing politicians and welcoming distinguished visitors from her bed. Inshe published Notes on Hospitalswhich focused on how to properly run civilian hospitals. Throughout the U. Civil Warshe was frequently consulted about how to best manage field hospitals. Nightingale also served as an authority on public sanitation issues in India for both the military and civilians, although she had never been to India herself.

Inat the age of 88, she was conferred the merit of honor by King Edward. In May ofshe received a congratulatory message from King George on her 90th birthday. In AugustFlorence Nightingale fell ill but seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. A week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12,she developed an array of troubling symptoms.

She died unexpectedly at 2 p. Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral. Florence Nightingale. The National Archives, UK. You can opt out at any time.

The biography of florence nightingale: Florence Nightingale (‑) was an

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